So this past weekend my mom and I had decided to try making our own Lychee and Orange jellies using Agar Agar which is a gelatin that is made from seaweed. Agar Agar is great where you don’t have to refrigerate for the jelly to harden and depending on how much water you put in it, it can harden within 10mins!
Agar Agar comes in different forms either a brick or flakes. I normally buy the clear colored ones so that I can use food coloring with it to it any color I want.

After heating up the agar agar with water and juice we poured the mixture into molds where I then put pieces of fruit into so that each one had a bite of lychee/orange.
For lychee we added coconut juice and orange we added orange juice.

Lychee Jellies

Orange Jellies

Last year was my first year going to the parade and it was tons of fun but very crowded. For 2010, I wanted to walk around and take pictures of the crowds reaction and the atmosphere of the event. This year the parade had a larger crowd which made it hard to walk around without being pushed but I was still able to get some pictures on my XSI as well as my Rolleicord. The rolleicord pictures will be featured in another post as I’m still going through a few rolls of film before I batch process them.
Before the parade started there were already tons of people waiting alone the route making it hard to maneuver without being pushed or pushing someone else. The cops were nice enough to let me stand in the middle to grab a couple of shots of the street.
The little girl on the left looks very uncomfortable



So last week I had gone to the doctor for pain in my right wrist and it turns out that I have tendinitis because of the diagnosis I had to temporarily stop the strobist theme for this year because it hurts to carry everything as well as my camera. I am still doing a 365project though as its become a daily routine for the last 2years.
Through the month of January, I was able to buy a 2nd flash which added a new dimension to my strobist photos and I have learned a lot in the 31days. There will still be strobist photos popping up on my flickr stream every once and awhile but probably only on weekends as it will be easier for me to set up photos on those days.
Following are a few of my favorite ones so far! :





Yay what a nice surprise! I was looking through my flickr page referrers and I noticed that I got some hits through the Gothamist website and that’s how I found out the picture was used! I’ve been trying for awhile now to at least get one of my NYC photos to be featured on an article with them but never succeeded till today. So cool!

So I have been doing the 365 project since 2008 and there was never a theme or anything in particular that I was going for when I took a picture. For 2010, I wanted to give myself more of a specific direction because out of all the techniques that I tried in 2009, this theme was the most challenging and rewarding. The theme for 2010 that I have chosen is off-camera lighting.
Currently I use only a Canon 580exii and cactus v2 triggers that are borrowed. I also have 3 light modifiers which I am planning on using. I have a set of Radiopopper JRx studio triggers coming in soon and hopefully by the end of the year I can expand my lights collection a bit more.
Product and portrait photography lighting gives me such a rewarding experience and hopefully at the end of the year I will be able to expand my lighting skills and have it become second nature.
Happy new year everyone =)
